was even then visible in the handling of his works. He laboured on, however, unknown and neglected, for Caravaggio, the dark, ferocious assassin of the Milanese, then tyrannized over painting at Naples ; and he who was not enrolled in the list of his seguaci, had no chance of success. An incident, however, occurred, which dispelled, in some measure, the gloom that hung over his for tunes. Lanfranco, the rival of Domenichino, and his deadly foe, received an invitation to paint the Church of Il Gesù, at Naples, in 1631. He accepted the offer, and arrived at Naples with all the splendour which generally accompanied his excursions. Amidst the artists that crowded to welcome the illustrious visitor, Salvator was not one; but as Lanfranco was returning one day in his carriage to his lodgings, by the Strada della Carita, he was struck by a picture in oil, which hung outside the door of a reven ditore. He stopped his carriage, and ordered his pupil, Antonio Richieri, to bring it to him. It was one of Salvator's most characteristic paint ings; the story of Hagar and her son, told with all that forcible and melancholy originality that distinguishes his style-simple, solemn, and striking. Lanfranco looked at the picture with admiration, purchased it immediately, and gave a general order to his pupils to buy every painting they saw marked with the name of Salvatoriello. The incident was soon known in Naples, and while it procured the young painter distinction, it drew down on him the envy of those disappointed rivals, who had vainly courted that approbation, which Salvator, the humble, unknown Salvator, had obtained unsought. The painter retorted their attacks by epigrams and satires, which, while they gained him a few friends, increased the number of his foes in a tenfold proportion. "Steeped in poverty to the very lips," the unfortunate Salvator bent his steps to Rome, at that time under the Ecclesiastical Government of Urban VIII., of the family of the Barberini. It was but a change of place, however, not of fortune; for here, as at Naples, fashion was omnipotent, and patronage was divided between the Oltramontani, or Fle mish School, and the followers of the painter, statuary, and architect, the Cavalier Bernini. The Neapolitan painter wandered among the ruins of the ancient city, climbed the Aventine and Cælian Hills, and from their summits sketched the surrounding desolation; he penetrated mouldering ruins and noxious excavations in the ardour of his art, returning at night to his dreary lodging, parched with fever and illness, to work off his rapid sketches, for sale in the Piazza Navona, for a pittance as miserable as that which he had earned in Naples; and at last, hopeless and diseased, he returned to his native country, which he had quitted, a few months before, in the flush of health and youthful expectation. He was destined, however, to revisit Rome, under circumstances which he had not anticipated. His early friend, Girolamo Mercuri, was appointed Maestro di Casa to the Cardinal Brancaccia, and at his invitation he again returned to Rome in the latter end of the year 1635, where the kindness of his friend assigned him an apartment in the vast palace of his master. Here he resumed his labours, painting and studying with unwearied diligence, though obliged, in general, to chuse his models from his own figure, reflected in the large dusky mirror of the apartment; but his stiff, unbending disposition, which led him rather to shun than to court society, still deprived him of patronage and remuneration. With his characteristic fierté, and nervous sensibility to the very idea of dependence, he soon quitted the roof of the Cardinal, who had begun to appreciate his merits, and, to the astonishment of his friends, returned to Naples. The wonderful success of his great picture of Prometheus, which he had painted in Naples, and consigned to his Roman friends, and which had gained a place in the annual exhibition in the Pantheon, again brought back the wandering painter to Rome, where he was soon to appear in a new character. The carnival of 1639 had arrived. In Rome, the carnival, more splendid than at Florence, was generally accompanied with comic dialogues, called Zingaresche, sung or said by groups of masques representing gipsies," who engaged in a fierce encounter of the wits, and told fortunes, revealed love secrets, and exercised the craft of legerdemain with what skill they might." It was towards the close of the carnival that a car, filled with these Thespians, highly ornamented, and drawn by oxen, attracted universal attention, by its novelty and singular representation. The principal personage announced himself as a certain Signor Formica, a Neapolitan actor, who, in the character of Coviello, as a charlatan, displayed so much genuine wit, such bitter satire, and exquisite humour, rendered doubly effective by a Neapolitan accent, and “i motivi dei lazzi nazionali," or national gesticulations, that other representations were abandoned; and gipsies told fortunes, and Jews sung, in vain. The whole population of Rome gradually assembled round the novel, the inimitable Formica. The people relished his flashes of splenetic humour, aimed at the great; the higher orders were delighted with an improvvisatore, who, in the intervals of his dialogues, sung to the lute, of which he was a perfect master, the Neapolitan ballads, then so much in vogue. The attempts made by his fellow-revellers to obtain some share of the plaudits he so abundantly received, whether he spoke or sung, asked or answered questions, were all abortive; while he (says Baldinucci) 66 come capo di tutti, e pur spiritoso, e ben parlante, con bei ghiribizzi e lazzi spiritosi teneva a se mezza Roma," at the head of every thing by his wit, eloquence, and brilliant humour, drew half Rome to himself. The contrast between his beautiful musical and poetical compositions, and those Neapolitan gesticulations in which he indulged, when, laying aside his lute, he presented his vials and salves to the delighted audience, exhibited a versatility of genius, which it was difficult to attribute to any individual then known in Rome. Guesses and suppositions were still vainly circulating among all classes, when, on the close of the carnival, Formica, ere he drove his triumphal car from the Piazza Navona, which, with one of the streets in the Trastevere, had been the principal scene of his triumph, ordered his troop to raise their masks, and, removing his own, discovered that Coviello was the sublime author of the Prometheus, and his little troop the "Partigiani” of Salvator Rosa. All Rome was from this moinent (to use a phrase which all his biographers have adopted) "filled with his fame." That notoriety which his high genius had failed to procure for him, was obtained at once by those lighter talents, which he' had nearly suffered to fall into neglect, while more elevated views had filled his mind. The success of his appearance in this character, and the popularity he for some time enjoyed with all classes, inspired Salvator with the bold design of reviving the old Commedie del Sogetto, a sort of extemporaneous pieces, in which, the outline being given by the poet, the players filled up the dialogue themselves. The characters in these pieces were of a conventional and prescriptive kind, never varying, and representing caricatures of the different nations of which Italy was composed; and, in the hands of able actors, they afforded room for a thousand allusions to events of the day, and piquant remarks on the politics and manners of the age which would not have been tolerated in the shape of grave discussion. These old national exhibitions, however, had fallen into decay, and had been succeeded by the cold and spiritless comedies of the early part of the 17th century, generally the work of members of some of the popular accademie. The rage for converting theatricals to profit, too, had seized the Romans, and the versatile Bernini, with the permission of the Pope, planned and executed a theatre in the Vatican which soon eclipsed all the private theatres in Rome; where, as our old Evelyn says, "he painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the engines, composed the music, writ the comedy, and built the theatre. The dramas of the Vatican had all the faults of the dramatic compositions of that age of degraded literature; and Bernini, who seems to have been the very type of Bays, introduced some practical conceits, which, in spite even of the bad taste of the times, could only have been tolerated under the sanction of his influence and fashion, aided by the combined talents of all his disciples, and an audience composed of princes and cardinals. Bernini had scarcely closed his theatre for the season, and was still catching the echoes of plaudits which shook the pon 1281 Salvator Rosa. tifical edifice to its centre, when the opening of another private theatre was announced, at the Vigna de' Mignanelli, a pretty but deserted villa near the Porta del Popolo. The first day's performance attracted an audience, distinguished, if not for rank, at least for almost all the talent and discrimination which Rome then afforded. The Inost noted, and the least expected, of the audience, was the Cavalier Bernini himself, seated conspicuously in the centre of the theatre, and surrounded by Romanelli, Guido Ubaldo, Abbatini, Ottaviano Castelli, and nearly the whole of his school and numerous followers. After some trifling delay, the usual note of preparation sounded, the curtain drew up, and, to the delight and surprise of the audience, the popular Formica of the carnival came forward for the prologue, habited as the Calabrese Coviello, in the character of the Direttore, or manager of the theatre. He was fol lowed by a crowd of young actors demanding the "soggetto" of the drama they were about to enact, with clamorous importunities. The preliminary gesticulations, the first accents of the Neapolitan dialect of Coviello, set the house in a roar and Laughter," holding both his sides," indulged himself freely, after his long privations, on the benches of the Fonderia. When silence was restored, Coviello opened the prologue, by explaining to his followers the reason of his giving into so idle an amusement as that of the acting of plays; and after an humorous description of the ardours of a Roman summer, and its enervating effects, not only on the body but on the mind, he began to dictate the plan and object of the play he was about to present; when, to the utter amazement of many, and to the great consternation of all, Coviello, in dictating rules for a genuine Italian comedy, introduced as faults to be avoided and ridicules to be laughed at, the very scenes, the dialogues, and even the new-fangled machinery of the applauded theatre of the Vatican. 66 Passeri, the painter, friend, and biographer of Salvator Rosa, at this most audacious attack upon one whom he has described as quel dragone, costode vigilante degli orti Esperidi," (the "dragon, the vigilant guardian of the Hesperian garden of patronage,") rose from his seat, and timidly turned his eyes upon the poBut the dignity tent tyrant of the arts. and prudence of Bernini did not permit With him to testify the least emotion. an affected indifference, an apparent unconsciousness of the attack he sustained, he coolly sat out the piece to the end. 263 taviano Castelli. Condemned to silence Bernini made a very foolish at- We extract with pleasure the following animated description of the leading characteristics of the style of Claude, G. Poussin, and Salvator: It was the genius of Claude which developed the new mystery of perspective, until his glorious pictures seemed to open vistas through the walls they decorated. The creator of a vegetable aristocracy, this master painter of the elements, ennobled the nature he copied, and was the first to stamp a beau idéal upon her material aspect, as Raphael had before done upon the human countenance. Those suns that seemed to set in a radiance which rivalled their meridian; those waters that never rippled but to summer breezes; that halo of light and lustre which fell over Eden scenes of almost unearthly loveliness; the splendour of architecture; the fair round forms of ruminating cattle, reposing in deep shades, or cooling their fervid sides in lucid streams, afforded combinations, which, in their endless variety, seemed to exhaust the powers of scenic nature, and to bid defiance to rivalry or imitation. Gasper Poussin, more learned than Claude, and more deeply tinged with the profound erudition of their common mas Not so his irritable poet and protegé, Otter, Nicholas, produced pictures, in which every image was susceptible of a commentary. Deficient in the brilliant idealism and splendid colouring of Lorraine, his works are characterized by a pastoral elegance and sylvan propriety, which produced for him the title of the "gentile artifice." He scattered over his landscapes the most beautiful features of the Tuscan and Tiburtine territories; and the broad foliage of his elegant plantains, his limpid fountains and silver streamlets, his gentle undulations, and fair pavilions, his perpetual verdure and cool skies, tempered down to the delicacy of his Arcadian figures, exhibited a Nature chosen and selected with practised judgment, such as she is seen in the descriptions of Tasso, of the fairy gardens of the voluptuous Armida. In the works of both these illustrious masters, in the radiant sun-lights of Claude, and the serene heavens of Poussin, the terrestrial world lies wrapped in a sweet repose. Nature, in her tranquil beauty, always appears the benefactress of man, not his destroyer; the source of his joys, not the tomb of his hopes, and the scourge of his brief existence; and such she appeared in the works of the two powerful geniuses who presided over landscape-painting, when Salvator Rosa came forth upon that arena, which they had hitherto exclusively occupied, and dispelled the splendid but "unreal mockery" of elements always genial, and nature always undisturbed. His magic pencil threw all into life and motion, and fearful activity. The "famoso pittore delle cose morali" could not separate the scene from the actor. He could not separate subordinate matter from him who was mocked in being told he was made to rule over it: and representing Nature as he saw her in those mighty regions he had most studied, he painted her the inevitable agent of human suffering, mingling all her great operations with the passions and interests of man, blasting him with her thunderbolt! wrecking him in her storms! burying him in her avalanches! and whelming him in her tornadoes! The least of his landscapes were pregnant with moral interest, and calculated to awaken human sympathies. His deep and gloomy forests, whose impervious shade is relieved by the silver bark of the shattered oak that forms the foreground, is only given as the shelter of the formi dable bandit, whose bold and careless fi gure, strangely armed and wildly habited, fixes the eye beyond all the merits of the scenic representation. The long line of stony pathway cut through masses of impending rock, is but the defile in which the gallant cavalier, bent on some generous enterprise, is overtaken by the pitiless outlaw-or by the rush of storms, which seem to threaten destruction at every step his frighted steed advances. The way-worn traveller, the benighted pilgrim, the shipwrecked mariner, introduced as accessaries into the main scene, become images that engage the heart as well as the eye, and give to the inanimate character of landscape a moral action and an historical interest. We pass over some minor incidents in the life of Salvator, which preceded his return to Naples, after the death of Urban, and his gradual progress to reputation and fortune. He arrived in the midst of the political convulsion occasioned by the sudden revolt of Massaniello, of which a very amusing account is given, though strangely coloured by the party feelings of the author, whose judgment, we think, must have deserted her, when she admits that many of the incidents she has detailed have no other warrant than the popular rumours of Naples. Salvator became a member of Massaniello's council, and was admitted into the Compagnia della Morte, which, under his old acquaintance Falcone, had joined the standard of the inspired idiot of Amalfi. From the tumults which succeeded his death, Salvator escaped to Rome, where he composed one of the best and bitterest of his satires, entitled La Babilonia, and painted two pictures which had nearly consigned him to the Inquisition; one of them entitled La Fortuna, an allegorical representation of the unequal and injudicious distribution of the gifts of Fortune, representing asses decking themselves with orders,swine assuming the mitre,-foxes bearing the cross,-wolves, vultures, and tigers, dividing coronets among each other, and Fortune laughing at the confusion she had caused. About this time he received an invitation to visit the Court of Florence, which he accepted. At Florence he was received and entertained with the greatest pomp, by the Grand Duke, and associated with all the distinguished, either in rank or talent. His natural vanity displayed itself in sumptuous entertainments to his acquaintances, though he had the mortification to find, more than once, that those who had accepted his hospitality, sneered at his presumption. He became the founder of an academy, under the title of the Percossi, which soon became one of the most celebrated and brilliant in Italy. It was soon after this period that his connexion took place with Lucretia, (a most unhappy name!) an incident which Lady Morgan only at tempts to defend by the practice of the age; and, in her company, he set out to visit his friends the Maffei, at their Villa near Volterra. Here, enjoying all the sweets of liberty, he read, and walked, and studied, and painted; and here he is supposed to have conceived the design of his master-piece in painting, the Conspiracy of Catiline. On his return to Rome, he took a house on the Pincian Hill, between those of Nicholas Poussin and Claude, furnished it with his characteristic elegance, and revived his old exhibitions and recitations. The portraits of Nicholas Poussin and Salvator are graphically given in the following passage: From the moment that delicious spring of the Roman climate burst into its sudden bloom, till the intolerable heats and fatal mal-aria of autumn emptied its pubJie walks, and thinned its corso, the appearance of Salvator Rosa and his followers on the Monte Pincio, to which he confined his evening walks, never failed to produce a general sensation, and to draw all the professed disciples of the "far niente" from the embowering shades of the gardens of the Villa Medici. The Monte Pincio was then, as now, the fashionable passeggio, or lounge, of Rome; but at a period when every nation, class, and profession, still preserved its charac. teristic costume, the Roman Mall exhibited many such fantastic groupings, as, in modern times, might furnish the genius of masquerade with models equally striking and picturesque. Among the strolling parties of monks and friars, cardinals and prelates, Roman princesses and English peers, Spanish grandees and French cavaliers, which then crowded the Pincio, there appeared two groups, which may have recalled those of the Portico or the Academy, and which never failed to interest and fix the attention of the beholders. The leader of one of these singular parties was the venerable Nicholas Poussin! The air of antiquity which breathed over all his VOL. XIV. works seemed to have infected even his person and his features; and his cold, sedate, and passionless countenance, his measured pace and sober deportment, spoke that phlegmatic temperament and regulated feeling, which had led him to study monuments rather than men, and to declare that the result of all his experience was, "to teach him to live well with all persons." Soberly clad, and sagely accompanied by some learned antiquarian or pious churchman, and by a few of his deferential disciples, he gave out his trite axioms in measured phrase and emphatic accent, lectured rather than conversed, and appeared like one of the peripatetic teachers of the last days of Athenian pedantry and pretension. In striking contrast to these academic figures, which looked like their own "grandsires cut in alabaster," appeared, never-failingly, on the Pincio, after sunset, a group of a different stamp and character, led on by one who, in his flashing eye, mobile brow, and rapid movement—all fire, feeling, and perception-was the very personification of genius itself. This group consisted of Salvator Rosa, gallant ly, if not splendidly habited, and a motley gathering of the learned and the witty, the gay and the grave, who surrounded him. He was constantly accompanied in these walks, on the Pincio, by the most eminent virtuosi, poets, musicians, and cavaliers in Rome, all anxious to draw him out on a variety of subjects, when air, exercise, the desire of pleasing, and the consciousness of success, had wound him up to his highest pitch of excitement; while many, who could not appreciate, and some who did not approve, were still anxious to be seen in his train, merely that they might have to boast ** nos quoque." The remaining part of the life of Salvador exhibits few features materially different from the preceding. He continued to produce the most admirable specimens, both in historical and landscape painting,—to experience and to retort sarcasms and criticisms, to form resolutions of economy, and to practise the most unthinking extravagance,-to enjoy the highest honours and the most enlightened society, and yet to labour under a continual fretfulness, and nervous sensibility to the slightest inconveniences. It was in the exhibition of 1663 that he gave to the world what he emphatically calls "his great picture"-the Conspiracy of Catiline-in 1668 he produced LI |